Walking Through a Desert

I have never felt like I was creating anything. For me, writing is like walking through a desert and all at once, poking up through the hardpan, I see the top of a chimney. I know there’s a house under there, and I’m pretty sure that I can dig it up if I want. That’s how I feel. It’s like the stories are already there. What they pay me for is the leap of faith that says: ‘If I sit down and do this, everything will come out OK."

STEPHEN KING

Lauren DePino

When I first met Alan in Philadelphia nine years ago, I was both intrigued and aghast to learn about his fascination with letting go. He makes movies because they fade out. He jots short poems on poster board and posts them throughout cities with flimsy Scotch tape. If he later sees one strewn on the dirty sidewalk covered in footprints, this man who cleans the bathroom naked is elated. He takes photos of billboards with images in mid-decay, spellbound by their exquisitely disintegrating letters.

He embraces what I hate — the fleetingness of our dreams and achievements, of endeavors that take lifetimes to build, just to crumble to nothing.

When death came up in conversation one day, Alan said, “I’m excited for it. When it happens, I plan to be 100 percent present as I go.”

When I ask him how he can love the fact that our art, and the people who create it, will eventually be gone, he answers matter-of-factly, “I love the universe the way it is.”

 Lauren DePino,  When the Truth, and My Groom-to-Be, Stood Naked Before Me

Lauren DePino is a freelance writer and essay-writing coach at work on a memoir. She’s on Twitter @YourItalianHope, Facebook and Instagram.

Claude Debussy

 TITLE:

Arabesque No. 1 in E
COMPOSER:
Claude Debussy
SOLOISTS:
Aldo Ciccolini, piano


Debussy: L'Oeuvre pour Piano, Vol. V / Aldo Ciccolini

Tips for surviving extreme heat

https://www.thermapparel.com/blog/tips-for-surviving-extreme-heat

June 30, 2021

We have all heard the old joke .....It's so hot my thermometer goes up to "Are you kidding me?"

But the heat we are seeing is no joke. It. Is. Dangerous!  People in Arizona are receiving third-degree burns from falling on a hot parking lot. That's how hot it is. Please, please stay safe out there.

According to NOAA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) June 2020 is the hottest June EVER recorded worldwide, and it's looking like we may see another heat setting record hot month this year. 

If you live in an area with high humidity, keep an eye on the heat index. The heat index, also known as the apparent temperature, is what the temperature feels like to your body when relative humidity is combined with the air temperature. This has important considerations for your body's comfort.  When your body gets too hot, it begins to perspire or sweat to cool itself off. If the perspiration is not able to evaporate, your body cannot regulate its temperature and you will overheat, even possibly experience heat stress or heat stroke symptoms.

image from www.weather.gov

In order to determine the heat index using the chart above, you need to know the air temperature and the relative humidity. For example, if the air temperature is 100°F and the relative humidity is 55%, the heat index will be 124°F.

You can check your local area through the national weather service website

Did you know these Heat Facts?

• Over 86˚F / 30˚C, your body can not cool itself enough to keep your core temperature stable.
• If the temperature indoors reaches over 90, fans are not helping
• If a person reaches a temperature of 104 or more, death is likely.
• Prolonged exposure to heat can cause long term kidney problems.
• Heat kills more people worldwide than any other weather phenomenon.
• Men sweat more than women.
• Some medications can make you more susceptible to heat and heat stroke

Here are a few tips

 

• Wear a cooling vest, and it doesn't have to be ThermApparel if you have one WEAR IT. Dave Bexfield of ActiveMSers does an amazing job explaining the different kinds of cooling vests on the market, their advantages and disadvantages. Even if you don't have MS or a neurological disorder a cooling vest can help you from overheating and experiencing heat stress and heat stroke. 
• Drink water, lots of water, nothing fancy just plain old H2O
• It's not just the heat to pay attention to it's also how long you are in the heat.
• Use your local cooling shelters.
• Make a cooling plan (what if the power went out for a day or two). Would you be able to stay cool?
• The most effective strategy uses multiple options: cooling vests, cooling towel, fan, and keeping ice water available every wear.
• Know when enough is enough and to seek shelter.
• Don't go outside in the hottest parts of the day, typically between 10 am to 6 pm.

Be safe, be smart, be cool

what is most important?

 camaraderie

R.D. Johnson

https://feversofthemind.com/2021/06/24/fevers-of-the-mind-quick-9-interview-with-reggie-d-johnson-aka-r-d-johnson/

Reggie:     
From my poem 'Look At Me' found in my book, Cuarentena: 
                   
                   "I am black
                    I am then
                    I am now
                    I am what's to come
                    We are not less than
                    We are equal
                    We just want to be heard
                    And not for your entertainment
                    I am black
                    And you will not take that away from me"

Darkwater: Voices From Within the Well

Opinion

How the nuclear family structure was forced upon present-day Black families

This structure not only eroded the modes that Africans had long thrived on and carried out in their tradition, it drove the production of social and environmental ruin.

Andray Domise, Maclean's August 25, 2020

Photo: iStock/cokada

A century ago, historian and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois published a literary tome entitled Darkwater: Voices From Within the Veil, as both an autobiography and discourse on African history. In it, he emphasizes the importance of Black women and their centrality in the Black family.

He posits that the Black concepts of motherhood and femininity, and Black families’ historical system of rule by women and mothers, gave the world “not only the Iron Age, the cultivation of the soil . . . the domestication of animals, but also, in peculiar emphasis, the mother-idea.” That is, the conception of the mother as creator and sustainer, rather than the patriarchal builder with which the Western world is most familiar.

Du Bois’ passage, and the chapter itself titled “The Damnation of Women,” stood out then for its indictment of white supremacy in its attempts at destroying African notions of family and community. A century later, the passage leaps from the page, as the well-worn trope of the “broken” Black family—led by burdened mothers, in the absence of capable fathers—has once again been summoned from the crypt to force the nuclear family on Black communities.

Jamil Jivani, author and “advocate for community opportunities” under the Ford government of Ontario, this time leads the rearguard tilt at the windmills against “out-of-touch Twitter activists [talking] about defunding the police” and, for some reason, Black Lives Matter. Jivani, according to a tweet on July 7, seems to believe Black Lives Matter is short for “Black lives matter only if they’re killed by cops so don’t ask us about gangs and also we hate the nuclear family and capitalism but don’t ask about that either.”

In another tweet on July 23, Jivani claims the organization “excludes fathers” in their statement of beliefs.

On the Black Lives Matter website, the organization states: “We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and ‘villages’ that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents and children are comfortable.”

None of this is new. The peculiarity of the Black family, which has always been of deep interest to the state and colonizing forces of white supremacy, is this: the strength and pride in Black femininity, motherhood and yes, matriarchal tradition.

I want to make something very clear: the most brutal social structure that Western civilization has managed to force on the present-day Black family—the African family—is the alienating nuclear family structure. This structure not only eroded the modes that Africans had long thrived on and carried out in their tradition, it drove the production of social and environmental ruin.

Single family homes, suburban blight, gentrification, and commuter and consumer cultures cast billions of tons of climate-changing gases into the atmosphere each year. The nuclear family is competition with one’s neighbours and family, rather than communal living, space-sharing and strength in the face of oppression: it is the erasure of our history; the replication of white supremacy with Black silhouettes.

In addition to the dispersal of families, the nuclear family model discourages African-rooted practices such as community fostering, fictive kinship, social fathering and other means by which Black people have counteracted the shearing forces of white supremacy.

The theories of historic race essentialism (such as that of French historian Jules Michelet) deemed these values to mark Africa as “woman,” and “her races” as “feminine.” Hundreds of years later, the theory proffered by the U.S. government’s Nixon administration on the Black family (commonly known as the Moynihan Report) concludes that “the Negro community has been forced into a matriarchal structure which, because it is [too] out of line with the rest of the American society, seriously retards the group as a whole, and imposes a crushing burden on the Negro male, and, in consequence, on a great many Negro women as well.”

This, of course, is hogwash. The nuclear family, and its individualized units led exclusively by patriarchs, are not of Black traditions.

These are concepts that deserve to be rejected in favour of our own traditions and histories—including the “mother-idea” Du Bois conjured—with which we ought to develop better relations. And these are concepts that, as uprisings against white supremacy and the evils of capitalism lay the contradictions of oppressive systems bare, need to be thrown overboard by the masses as we engage on this rebellious passage.

“curtailment”

In northern Vermont, officials have put a moratorium on new solar and wind projects, because the transmission lines can’t carry any more electricity. And when a transmission line that crosses the Mississippi was upgraded in 2019, the effect was to move the congestion from Iowa to Illinois.

A consequence of congestion is that wind and solar equipment is sometimes unable to operate because there is no room on the lines to carry their electricity. (This is called “curtailment” in energy lingo, and it also occurs when demand falters.) In New York state last year, 62 gigawatt-hours of wind power was curtailed; it was a small but not insignificant fraction of total wind production.

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/29/power-grid-problems/

Women

 

Tonight

Tonight when walking Romeo on Kanatha Street I saw a colander and pizza pan being thrown out. Lovely Rita came out to chat, "I lived across the street on the top floor when I was born," she said, pointing.

"Of course I don't remember. Then my father built this house and then built the apartments next door in 1967 for my brothers and sisters. Now I'm selling my house and will move next door."

I fell in love with the 1950's small aluminum colander and picked it up out of the trash pile. "That's old, that was my mother's but it's missing a handle," she said. As she said that I spotted a pizza pan. "This is so well loved," I said noticing the score marks from slicing.

"I'd remind my brother to come over and slice the pizza," she said. "We'd have it every Saturday after mass. And Saint Theresa's still my parish."

Then we said goodbye and turned the corner. I put the colander on my head. It fit nicely. "How do I look?" I asked my husband. "It's my new martian yarmulke."

"Romeo and I are walking ahead of you, we don't know you," my husband replied.

I spotted my reflection in a parked car window. "The feet look like horns!" I laughed.

On the way home we stopped at the market and I saw my favorite former student and neighbor Heidi who is now a beautiful 30-year-old adult. She was with her nephew who is seven now and 3 times the height he was last time I saw him. Heidi has started her own cosmetics business and is still cooking in restaurants. We hugged.

I returned to the car with my groceries. As we turned down the street my husband spotted a blazing tiki torch burning on the 2nd floor wooden porch opposite Nancy's house. I know the landlord, so when we got home I phoned him to prevent disaster.

Frozen Gel Bead Eye Mask

 wrapped in gator headband to keep head cool.

Chick Peas

Cooked unsoaked chick peas in a colander fit in my instant pot for 90 minutes. Let them dry on baking sheet. Added kosher salt and ate them! I was planning on toasting them but they were so good as is. And it's 96 degrees out!

Chick peas pressure cooked to perfection in water. Leftover liquid strained thru colander and saved. This will be water for bread dough or soup stock. I added kosher salt to the chick peas and we ate them like nuts. Delicious!

recipe for future possibilities

Ratattouille

 https://cooking.nytimes.com/guides/34-how-to-make-ratatouille

Buttermilk Magic!

 

Buttermilk Roast Chicken

By Nigella Lawson

• Yield 4 servings
• Time 1 1/2 hours, plus overnight marinating

Craig Lee for The New York Times

Roast a chicken and you know you have a comfortable meal. Alter that a little by butterflying the chicken, a surprisingly simple task that can be carried out with a pair of kitchen scissors, and you have a quick dinner that carries with it the casual air of barbecue, without the bother. Here, buttermilk, which is usually associated with fried chicken, helps to tenderize the chicken and conveys the aromatics: you really get the full value of the rosemary, pepper and garlic. If you want to substitute maple syrup for the honey, you can. Best of all, you can leave the marinating bird in the fridge for up to two days; thus, it gets more tender and you know you have a dinner that needs no more than to be popped into the oven.

Featured in: At My Table; Spatchcock The Chicken. Cut The Cake. Ah, Summer!. 

Project, Buttermilk, Chicken, Rosemary, Main Course

Ingredients

• 1 4-pound chicken
• 2 cups buttermilk
• ¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 cloves garlic, lightly crushed
• 1 tablespoon crushed black peppercorns
• 1 tablespoon Maldon or other sea salt
• 2 tablespoons fresh rosemary leaves, roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon honey

• Nutritional Information

  • 
    

Preparation

1. Butterfly chicken by placing breast side down and using heavy-duty kitchen shears to cut along both sides of backbone. Discard backbone, turn chicken over and open it like a book. Press gently to flatten it.
2. Place chicken in a large freezer bag. Add buttermilk, 1/4 cup oil, garlic, peppercorns, salt, rosemary and honey. Seal bag securely and refrigerate overnight or up to two days.
3. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Remove chicken from marinade and place on a rack so excess can drip off. Line a roasting pan with foil and place chicken in pan. Drizzle with remaining 2 tablespoons oil. Roast for 45 minutes, then reduce heat to 325 degrees. Continue roasting until well browned and until juices run clear when chicken is pierced where leg joins thigh, about another 20 minutes.
4. Place chicken on a carving board and allow to rest for 10 minutes before cutting into serving pieces. Place a portion on each of four plates, and drizzle each serving with pan juices.

Notifications off!

 5 hour workday 

https://reasonstobecheerful.world/five-hour-work-day-benefits/

Rituals

 https://reasonstobecheerful.world/crossing-the-threshold/

Una LaMarche

I love first sentences because they are full of promise. I like to think of them as an introductory handshake made of words, one that can’t be too limp, too strong, too eager or sweaty.

Una LaMarche

HOT WEATHER Advice from Arnica X Ross

Hi. I've been worried about you overheating so here I am with bossy bossy tips.

Blackout your windows. All of them. If you got aluminum foil put it shiny side out and then something like cardboard behind that and then a blanket or towels over that. You want it DARK in your place

Don't make yourself eat, don’t force your kids to eat. Eating when too hot will cause vomiting. Have fruit and jello in the fridge and make them unlimited for the heatwave. I KNOW your toddler will want to eat jello all day. It's okay today. Cold fruit/jello keep them hydrated.

Put your little ones and older family members in cool water as often as they can stand it. If you have a tub USE it. GENEROUSLY. As soon as we hit 97 in Maine my kid was in a cool tubby every 4 hrs when he was little. Run it room temp and slowly add cold til they kinda perk up

This is not the time for modesty. Let them babies be butterball naked when they get out of the tub if they're comfortable that way. Please don't be shy about your fat rolls, your stretch marks, your scars. People will legitly overheat AT HOME over not liking their bodies. DON'T.

PNW homes are built similar to New England ones. Small spaces cut up so that you can close them off to reduce spaces for easy heating.

This makes heat WAY WORSE. You need to move air through your house or it will be 5 hrs after sunset before things start to cool off inside.

Pick your cooling room (should be a room in the lowest level you've got if you've got 2 flrs) use blankets in the doorways if the room doesn't have doors. We're partially separating the cooling room from the wind tunnel we're gonna make in the rest of the house.

Put everyone in the cooling room and now go open ALL the doors in the house. Open 1 window in each room. If you have a fan for each room, put them in the open window facing OUT. If you only have 2 fans put 1 in the doorway of the furthest room and the other aimed out opp window

Also, if you only have 2 fans please drop your cashapp, PayPal, or venmo under this tweet and I will RT it because you're gonna need more than 2 fans. This is not a 1 and Done event. You'll be doing this every summer for the rest of our lives.

Preferably you will have a fan for each room including the room with the ac. Once an hour for 10 or so minutes, roll up the blanket/open the door blocking the cooling room from the rest of the house and set your cooling room fan in the doorway blowing out into the rest of it.

Yes, I KNOW you can hear your dad hollering about not cooling all outside. And I know about your light bill baby, but you NEED to throw 10 mins of cold air out into that wind tunnel every hour or so so your family can keep using the rest of the house less miserably.

Put lightweight dress socks from the dollar tree in a zip lock bag and pop them in the freezer. The slippery rayon kind that you can get from the dollar store. They cool down REALLY fast and can help bring temps down on someone overheating. They're 2pk for $1 at the dollar store

Some people put undies in the zip locks. I can't. Your ball having offspring will not like it. Odds are high your ND offspring won't like it. If they like chilly buns add clean undies to the zip lock but more people will take cold feet over cold genitals.

Unplug EVERYTHING you aren't using. Not playing videogames? Unplug the console. Unplug the microwave, the washer, the desktop computer, tvs in rooms people aren't in. Your electronics keep your house like 3 degrees warmer just from their power usage. Unplug it til you need it.

I need you to step into a chilled shower at least twice today. I know you're hot and you're busy and you're not gonna help yourself or anyone else if YOU are your family's heat exhaustion victim. I'm not asking you to wash a single inch of yourself. Just stand under flowing water

Seriously, if your family can go semi or fully nocturnal for the hottest days, do that. Pull mattresses into the cooling room on the floor and let people sleep from 11am to 4pm. That 6 hr stretch is the worst for direct heat.

No one goes outside without sunscreen, no matter what shade tint tone or color foundation you wear.

If you can, keep under 6s inside period. One of the 1st symptoms of heat exhaustion is nonsensical speech and dilerium. It can be HARD to tell if your 4 is heat loopy or silly

Minimal outside for your pets. I KNOW your doggy likes doing a mile with you every day no matter what. Sorry, that little butthole is just gonna have to do without and maybe chew something when you're not looking. The ground is DANGEROUSLY hot on their feet. Potty only.

If your schedule permits 6 am and 11pm, walk THEN. But nothing while the sun is out. If you don't believe me, walk from your front steps to the corner in your bare feet at noon. You won't make it 15 steps.

If your dog has winter booties break them back out for potty time.

Put ice in your pets water.

Buy a HUGE bag of chopped frozen veg that your family hates and divvy them into more ziplock bags for sticking under necks, in armpits and crotches to force core temps down.

Know where an inhaler is. Asthma can be triggered when it's too hot

Put your neb fluid in the fridge if it already isn't.

One, it should be in the fridge ANYWAY but if you didn't know that, do it because a cold neb into lungs that are seizing from working hot thick air? One of the top 10 most excellent sensations in the world. Better than a nut

Try not to eat out during the hottest part of the day if you are able to skip that. Remember that those kitchens can be hellishly hot in the WINTER. Don't make anyone drop fries for you at 1pm if it's not a medical necessity. Or if you have to, get cold food like a yummy sub!

Turn off the ceiling fan. It's not helping. It's forcing the hot air that has risen to your ceiling Back Down On You.

Ceiling fans are surprise winter saviors and heat wave betrayers.

Once you're in triple digits, try to stay out of the fan. It can make you HOTTER

Keep an eye out for altered states in your family members. Unfocused eyes that don't immediately refocus when you call them. A red not pink flush. No sweat. Unless you have rich people air on MAX, your family SHOULD be sweating pretty steadily outside of the cooling room.

Nonsensical answers, slurred speech, belligerence, and confusion are also signs to watch closely for. If they're outside of the cooling room get them lying down in that cool space. Break out your freezer socks and bring them a jello which they're less likely to puke than cold H2O

If they're in the cooling room, get them flat and deploy the socks as well as the frozen veg. Top of the head, back of the neck, both armpits, small of the back, between the thighs, back of the knees. Try to bring their temp down in the cooling room BEFORE taking them to the bath

Don't put ANYONE in a cool shower unless you know 100% that you have the strength to support them safely if they start seizing. Put them in the tub, cool not cold, and keep your hands on them the whole time. You should call 911, but do the cooling room steps 1st

Emergency services are going to be...tight. All these tips assume you're fortunate enough to be housed and have at least 1 fan and 1 junker ac. Lots of people have 1 or none of these things. EMTs are gonna be heartbreakingly busy. Start your cool down steps before you call 911

Emergency services is going to give you similar instructions. Follow what they tell you to do.

If you are an adult living alone, set up regular phonecalls at least 3 a day until the heat breaks. 1 morning call, 1 around 2pm, 1 evening call. You will NOT notice heat exhaustion

Someone who KNOWS what you sound like and your speech patterns needs to hear your voice after you wake up, in the hottest part of the day, and once it cools down to make sure you are not caught in the grips of heat exhaustion and unable to recognize it.

You don't have to make conversation. Read half a page from a book you both know outloud. Do your favorite movie monologue. Explain your zpoc plan. Sugar or salt on grits?

You just need to speak for about 5 mins. Long enough for your friend to notice if you slur, drift, or stop

If you're the contact person for someone living alone, and notice they sound fucky during their phonecall, ask them to get a cold drink and then get into the tub. Half of them will get bitchy because fuck heat distress for making humans aggy as fuck. Make them.

If you live alone, please make sure someone you trust WHO CAN REACH YOU IN LESS THAN 20 MINUTES has access to your apartment. Because your key holder may have to come over and physically Put You in the shower. Please don't fight. The more you don't want to, the more you need to

Literally the worst thing in the world that can happen if you're not in heat distress is that you stand under some refreshing water fully dressed while giving your loving friend the stink eye while they grow increasingly more sheepish.

But more likely they will save your life.

Sending 911 to someone alone for heat distress should be the call of absolute last resort. Because you never know if it's gonna be an ambulance, a fire crew, or fucking cops who get sent and disabled and Black adults in heat distress can become victims by being disoriented

If you can travel IN A COOL VEHICLE to your friend, go to them. Do NOT walk 20 mins in 109 degree weather 'save them' because you won't. You absolutely will NOT save either of you. If you can't get there in 20 mins in a moderately cool vehicle, call someone closer

If you must call 911 for a person alone and you are ABSOLUTELY sure they need intervention, do NOT say 'belligerent, aggressive, aggy, tweakin, buggin, wild, crazy' at any point during the call. You do not want words that trigger a cop car to be sent instead of EMTs.

Say "my friend is an adult living alone who sounds like they're in heat distress. They are disoriented and having a hard time understanding simple commands. They need medical assistance"

That's it. Do not describe their mental state any other way. Do not confirm any suggestions.

If the dispatcher asks how they responded to you do not tell them your friend told you to fuck yourself and hung up, even if they did. Stick with "they were unable to follow my simple commands. I think they need medical attention."

This script only plus their address. DASSIT

And that's it. That's all my bossy heat advice. It's all I've got for you.

Be safe. Stay cool.

Stay Cool

In the past I've hosed down my head feet and torso in the back yard. Sitting in kiddy pool with my dog so he cooled off too.  I'd tie towel around my waist and wear wet clothes while sitting on dry towel in front of the fan. To stay cool keep wet towel turban on head

electrolyte potato salad

I have been playing with my Mandoline attachment on my Cuisinart. I sliced Yukon gold potatoes that needed to be used and carrots and heated them in my 12 inch skillet. Then I added olive oil, soy sauce, Chianti jug red wine, salt, Adobo, balsamic vinegar, and water and cooked until done. Now it's cooling but the taste is delicious. Were having a heat wave and this is a perfect electrolyte potato salad. 

UPDATE I added raw red onion, spinach and green olives.

Food Stylist's Amazing Story

 https://www.chopchopfamily.org/the-journal/meet-catrine-kelty-chopchop-familys-food-stylist/

Snakes and Ladders

 The School of Life has taken Snakes and Ladders and turned it into a great game about emotional life: the ladders represent all those moments when you learn how to be more of a grown-up, the snakes the times when you end up acting, against your better nature, like a tantrum-prone toddler.

Rotel Salsa + Home Made Chips

 https://easyfamilyrecipes.com/homemade-salsa-recipe/

https://www.allrecipes.com/video/4909/baked-tortilla-chips/  (keep them whole)

122 Degrees Pakistan Hotter than HELL

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/climate-and-people/hotter-human-body-can-handle-pakistan-city-broils-worlds-highest/

Sleeveless T Shirts HACK

 https://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Sleeveless-T-Shirt-from-an-Unused-T-Shirt

Red Hand Files

 

Issue #156 / June 2021

I’ve always had an affinity for songwriters who put a lot of craft into their songs like they’re building a wooden table, everything is where it should be. Do you think it is more important to find inspiration or to get to work and write?

JAKE, HAMILTON, CANADA

What’s it like to write a song?

FREYA, SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA

Dear Jake and Freya,

I also have an affinity with artists who treat their craft as a job and are not dependent on the vagaries of inspiration — because I am one of them. Like most people with a job, we just go to work. It never occurs to us not to work, there is never a moment when we don’t work because ‘we are not feeling it’ or ‘the vibes aren’t right’. We just do our hours, as I am doing mine now, writing to you, Jake, and to you, Freya.

The most important undertaking of my day is to simply sit down at my desk and pick up my pen. Without this elementary act I could not call myself a songwriter, because songs come to me in intimations too slight to be perceived, unless I am primed and ready to receive them. They come not with a fanfare, but in whispers, and they come only when I am at work.  

Pen poised, I sit to attention, in my suit, on the edge of my imagination, prepared for the beautiful line to arrive. Sometimes it does, sometimes it does not — either way I am powerless to influence the outcome. So often we stand bereft before our ingenuity, with nothing to show for our efforts. Yet at other times we are ushered in.

Once inside the imagination all manner of inexplicable things occur. Time gets loopy, the past presses itself against the present, and the future pours out its secrets. Suddenly words behave in ways they shouldn’t, but wonderfully do, our pulse quickens, yummy butterflies explode in our tummies and songwriting becomes a collision between the pragmatic and the completely gaga — transcendental, outrageously religious, bananas — and then God appears, there He is, with all His cross-dressing angels and demons and other things, I don’t even know what, spirits muttering unspeakable things, and chubby, pink muses tumbling about, and child-small shapes with outstretched arms, calling, instructing, and the beautiful line begins to take shape, gently emerging — there it is! — falling lovely from the end of your pen.

And then your working day is done and you step away. It’s Saturday night and time for dinner and your rider’s name is Irfan. Goodnight, Jake. Goodnight, Freya.

Love, Nick

Chief Red Eagle

Angry people want you to see how powerful they are. Loving people want you to see how powerful you are.

 Chief Red Eagle

Rereading a Fabulous Book

I loved this book the first time and I am loving it again!

The Answer to the Riddle is Me

 Memoir of Amnesia

David Stuart Maclean

711 Brightwater Court Brookyln

 https://forgotten-ny.com/2010/01/brighton-beach-brooklyn/

My grandparents Nat and Sophie lived here and the building is still exactly the same with the same smells and sounds. My Aunt and Uncle lived in my Grandparents apartment. my Aunt still does.

Vivian Howard

https://www.saveur.com/southern-tomato-pie-recipe/

The Overlooked Effects of Fireworks

July 03, 2020 | by Chris Mallard 

 https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2020/july/the-overlooked-effects-of-fireworks

Blue

 https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/6075-baked-bluefish-with-sweet-mustard-glaze

Chef Michael Smith

video on Lobster

Chef Michael Smith on Salmon

http://chefmichaelsmith.com/recipe/maple-mustard-grilled-salmon-2/

http://chefmichaelsmith.com/recipe/maple-mustard-oat-crusted-salmon/

http://chefmichaelsmith.com/recipe/slow-baked-salmon-honey-mustard-glaze/

Survivors

 https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/residential-school-survivors-reflect-on-brutal-legacy-that-could-have-been-me

You're a Boxer

You’re a boxer. Your job is to get punched in the face and keep swinging. It’s easy for anybody to say, “I wrote five scripts. None of them sold. I gave it my best shot. I’m moving back to Chicago.” You can’t do that. If you want a career in Hollywood, you can’t fail. You can quit, which most people do when they don’t achieve success as quickly as they’d like, but you can’t fail. There are as many opportunities as you can create for yourself. You can write a script a day, every day, for your whole life, if you’re that motivated.

ADAM RIFKIN

Sew This Dress

 

Swimmers in Summer

How can one wear a wet bathing suit all day and not get crotch itch? I am thinking cotton underwear underneath or folded bandana in crotch of suit?

Marguerite Yourcenar, Mémoires d'Hadrien.

 "... des moments libres. Toute vie bien réglée a les siens, et qui ne sait pas les provoquer ne sait pas vivre. Marguerite Yourcenar, Mémoires d'Hadrien.

"... free moments. Every well-regulated life has its own, and he who does not know how to provoke them does not know how to live.”  -Marguerite Yourcenar, “Memoirs of Hadrian.”

Music

 Listen 1970 Joni Mitchell + James Taylor in concert

Romeo Swimming

I just took ROMEO swimming and he loved it. We kept him on the extra long leash to make sure he didn't veer off out of reach. Then I jumped in wearing my clothes just to cool off. The water was nice and cold and clean. I went in the MILL RIVER in Blackstone. Our favorite spot, a mile and a half down the road.

Avalon

Listen

Stick Library

We used to keep a wheelbarrow full of Sycamore sticks our dogs loved to chew sometimes sharing one long stick simultaneously. They were tough sticks. When we had to move we ritualistically tossed the sticks 1 at a time into the Blackstone river saying goodbye to our old dwelling.

Sleeveless in Woonsocket

I have a dress three of the same one I bought 40 years ago for three dollars each and today I might slice the sleeves off of one dress so I can wear it over my bathing suit as a grandma style house dress. I've only thought about it for decades. No rush.

Half a Cake

Today is my half birthday. I loathe my birthday and it's in the wrong week every year! I have had fantasies of celebrating with a half a cake on June 27th since I was a kid.

Love your Children

 Read story by

haley parizo

I am a former teacher…

And I am the wife of a former garbage man…

And I am the mother of two boys, one of whom already shows a propensity for working with his hands…

And I hold a BA in Political Science, an MA in Theology, and work in a field where neither is necessary nor required.

Aristotle

 Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.

 Aristotle

AMAZING

 https://www.chopchopfamily.org/our-story/ 

Good News!

 FREE Kyaking Lessons for Central Falls RI Kids

https://www.pressreader.com/usa/woonsocket-call 6/26/21

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

Nothing you do for children is ever wasted. They seem not to notice us, hovering, averting our eyes, and they seldom offer thanks, but what we do for them is never wasted.

Garrison Keillor

William Goldman

Screenplays are structure, and that’s all they are. The quality of writing—which is crucial in almost every other form of literature—is not what makes a screenplay work. Structure isn’t anything else but telling the story, starting as late as possible, starting each scene as late as possible. You don’t want to begin with “Once upon a time,” because the audience gets antsy.

WILLIAM GOLDMAN

 

We Arrived

We arrived at a biscotti that recipe we love with only a few small changes...

1/4 cup less sugar, 

1 cup whole wheat flour 

1 cup of almond flour

a bit more salt due to the oilier flours

https://www.shelovesbiscotti.com/authentic-italian-anise-biscotti/

Lucille Ball Vivian Vance

 

Sidewalk Sightings

Our car has been in the shop all week and we were finally out for a drive with Romeo our pup, to walk in another neighborhood.

 "Turn the car around," I said to my husband. 

"What?"

"I saw a Bundt pan on the sidewalk. We have to go back, Teddi needs one!"

We kept going but on the way home I said, "Let's look and see if it's still there."

It was. And it was fire engine red with a creamy white interior. I washed it and made a batch of popcorn and poured it into the pan just for fun.

If I had a car my bumper sticker would be "I brake for Bundt pans!"

Pain is not Punishment

https://findingpresencewithin.com/2020/04/19/pain-is-not-a-punishment-and-pleasure-is-not-a-reward/

1861 Carrot Jam

recipe

The Denim Cow!

 

here

Annie Dillard

 The Page Will Teach You to Write

June 25, 2021

Who will teach me to write? a reader wanted to know. The page, the page, the blankness of eternity which you cover slowly, affirming time’s scrawl as a right and your daring as necessity; the page, which you cover woodenly, ruining it, but asserting your freedom and power to act, acknowledging that you ruin everything you touch but touching it nevertheless, because acting is better than being here in mere opacity; the page, which you cover slowly with the crabbed thread of your gut; the page in the purity of its possibilities; the page of your death, against which you pit such flawed excellences as you can muster with all your life’s strength: that page will teach you to write.

ANNIE DILLARD

Jim Kwik

I'm not impressed by your looks, money, social status or job title. I'm impressed by the way you treat other human beings.

 Jim Kwik

Transcript

 Read

Zink

Examine your motives. Are you drawn to fiction writing because it can be performed cheaply at home? Are you an alcoholic looking for an excuse to sleep late? Writing is for compulsive storytellers. So are a lot of things—police work, diplomacy, counseling the needy, etc. Before you commit to writing as a career, make sure you’re not simply agoraphobic or depressed.

NELL ZINK

Preventable

 https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-941fcf43d9731c76c16e7354f5d5e187

Lemon Pasta

I love lemon, I love spinach, and I love pasta!

https://theclevermeal.com/10-minute-lemon-ricotta-pasta-with-spinach/

Pancakes!

1 1/3 cup whole-wheat flour (can use cornmeal, oat flour , buckwheat or flour blends)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/3 cup buttermilk
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 tablespoon corn oil
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries, chopped apple, or fruit of choice

pinch of salt, pinch of sugar

Ozzy

I haven't checked Facebook in so long my entire high school divorced, remarried, had another kid, & got three tattoos.

Ozzy@ozzyunc

Clothesline

In a few days we'll be buying new rope to rehang our clothesline and yes, I am very excited. There's nothing like towels and sheets hanging in the sun to dry.

Don't wait for calm waters

Life is a storm that will test you unceasingly. Don't wait for calm waters that may not arrive. Derive purpose from resilience. Learn to sail the raging sea.

-The Stoic Emperor

Erik Larson

My favorite “trick” is to stop writing at a point where I know that I can pick up easily the next day. I’ll stop in mid-paragraph, often in midsentence. It makes getting out of bed so much easier, because I know that all I’ll have to do to be productive is complete the sentence. And by then I’ll be seated at my desk, coffee and Oreo cookie at hand, the morning’s inertia overcome. There’s an added advantage: The human brain hates incomplete sentences. All night my mind will have secretly worked on the passage and likely mapped out the remainder of the page, even the chapter, while simultaneously sending me on a dinner date with Cate Blanchett.

ERIK LARSON

E.L. Doctorow

Writers are not just people who sit down and write. They hazard themselves. Every time you compose a book, your composition of yourself is at stake.
E.L. DOCTOROW

Advice

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/best-therapist-advice

Slum Landlords Take Down a City

The house for sale is wide open in the middle of the city. It's help yourself real estate strategy for an absentee landlord and lazy realtor. The residents have never met their landlord and all hell has been breaking loose for the five years he's owned it. We had three children abandoned, no schooling, no decent meals, living alone for over a year while the mother lived elsewhere with her boyfriend. The oldest was eleven the youngest, a toddler. Now we have two women who fight, choking each other and smashing furniture. They have two gigantic dogs that have not been outside in years. So when the inspectors come on behalf of prospective buyers to see the apartments they find the top floor covered with dog feces and the urine leaking through the ceiling to the empty 2nd floor apartment below, leaving stains and a whopping stench. I am curious if anyone will buy the house for the hefty asking price, quadrupled from what the landlord originally paid.

Arthur Miller

 A play is made by sensing how the forces in life simulate ignorance — you set free the concealed irony, the deadly joke.
ARTHUR MILLER

Rob Armstrong

If you want to make something happen, start with the people you hire. To be a milkman, you have to have a servant heart. You need to care about the people you service daily. If you are lucky enough to find these individuals, make sure to take care of them, because they are the ones who demonstrate the company’s values to your customers.

We have always sought to bring value into the lives of every customer we service. This goes much farther than the product itself and starts with the people behind the product. Be sure to give the time, effort and energy to the individuals who keep your business running. Effort produces value, and value creates loyalty. It is astounding how supportive our customers are and I am forever grateful. I think a reason for that loyalty is the commitment they witness in our incredible team every day.”

– Rob Armstrong

See the full Providence Business News article here

The Nightmare

I Love You, Please Get Vaccinated

By Anna Silman

Natalie Goldberg

The muscles of writing are not so visible, but they are just as powerful: determination, attention, curiosity, a passionate heart.

 NATALIE GOLDBERG

William Safire

Composition is a discipline; it forces us to think. If you want to “get in touch with your feelings,” fine—talk to yourself; we all do. But, if you want to communicate with another thinking human being, get in touch with your thoughts. Put them in order; give them a purpose; use them to persuade, to instruct, to discover, to seduce. The secret way to do this is to write it down and then cut out the confusing parts.

WILLIAM SAFIRE

Vanilla Flavor Made from...

 https://www.livescience.com/vanilla-flavor-plastic-waste.html

Extremely Rare

https://www.livescience.com/thunderstorm-asthma-melbourne-model.html

Rustic Cheddar Crackers

I used all whole wheat and they were great. I added fresh black pepper and more salt. I baked them longer and allowed them to cool slowly in the residual heat of the oven. They are spectacular!

Ingredients

6 ounces Cabot Extra Sharp Cheddar, Cabot Seriously Sharp Cheddar or Cabot Farmhouse Reserve Cheddar, grated (about 1 ½ cups)
¾ cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
⅓ cup King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
½  teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons cold water
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Directions

PLACE rack in middle position and preheat oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

STIR together cheese, white and whole wheat flours and salt, fork in a large bowl until well blended.

MAKE well in center of dry ingredients; add water and oil and stir, pulling dry ingredients into wet until combined. Briefly knead dough into ball.

DIVIDE dough in half. On floured work surface, adding more flour as needed to keep dough from sticking, firmly roll one piece of dough into very thin sheet, as large as baking sheet. Lift onto prepared baking sheet. Repeat with remaining piece of dough.

CUT dough with pizza cutter, pastry cutter, or knife into 1-by-2-inch rectangles or other shapes or sizes as desired.

BAKE (one sheet at a time if necessary) for 10 to 12 minutes or until well browned and completely crisp. (Edge crackers will brown first, so remove those with metal spatula and return remaining crackers to oven to finish baking, watching carefully.)

COOL completely, then store in zip-close bag or other airtight container.

https://www.cabotcheese.coop/recipe/rustic-cheddar-crackers/

Danny Trejo

Danny Trejo was born Dan Trejo in Echo Park, Los Angeles, to Alice (Rivera) and Dan Trejo, a construction worker. A child drug addict and criminal, Trejo was in and out of jail for 11 years. While serving time in San Quentin, he won the lightweight and welterweight boxing titles. Imprisoned for armed robbery and drug offenses, he successfully completed a 12-step rehabilitation program that changed his life. While speaking at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985, Trejo met a young man who later called him for support. Trejo went to meet him at what turned out to be the set of Runaway Train (1985). Trejo was immediately offered a role as a convict extra, probably because of his tough tattooed appearance. Also on the set was a screenwriter who did time with Trejo in San Quentin. Remembering Trejo's boxing skills, the screenwriter offered him $320 per day to train the actors for a boxing match. Director Andrey Konchalovskiy saw Trejo training Eric Roberts and immediately offered him a featured role as Roberts' opponent in the film. Trejo has subsequently appeared in many other films, usually as a tough criminal or villain.

2 Quotes, 1 Article

“If it ran, a Bean would eat it. If it fell, a Bean would eat it.”

― Carolyn Chute

“You can almost hear it, Rubie’s skeleton rearranging itself, one bone set against the other, the angry blood backing down.” 

― Carolyn Chute, The Beans of Egypt, Maine

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1985/02/10/carolyn-chute-voice-of-poverty/93827a1b-86b4-4088-8d95-a44bd37c3fb7/

you gotta cut it down with a spoon

“I feel like a lot of time my writing is like having about twenty boxes of Christmas decorations. But no tree. You're going, Where do I put this? Then they go, Okay, you can have a tree, but we'll blindfold you and you gotta cut it down with a spoon.”

― Carolyn Chute

Lemon Zest

 Lemon zest in banana yogurt orange smoothie.

Committee of Sleep

The unconscious mind takes the germ of an idea and develops it, but usually this happens only when a writer has tried hard, and logically, to develop it himself. After he has given it up for a few hours, getting nowhere, a great advancement of the plot will pop into his head. I have been waked up in the night sometimes by a plot advancement or a solution of a problem that I had not even been dreaming about.

PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

Stay Cool

A hot water bottle filled with icy water will cool bed linen and might help keep temperatures down, too.

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/howto/guide/how-eat-heatwave

schwa

schwa

/SHwä/

noun

 Phonetics

noun: schwa; plural noun: schwas; noun: sheva; plural noun: shevas

the unstressed central vowel (as in a mom e nt a go), represented by the symbol /ə/ in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

punc·tu·al /ˈpəNG(k)(t)SH(o͞o)əl/

 punc·tu·al

/ˈpəNG(k)(t)SH(o͞o)əl/

adjective: punctual

happening or doing something at the agreed or proper time; on time.

"he's the sort of man who's always punctual

Herman Hesse

Learn what is to be taken seriously and laugh at the rest. 

Herman Hesse

Baking Crackers

I adapted the recipe to be whole wheat flour, ww sourdough starter, corn oil, sesame seeds, sunflower seeds, herbs de provence, poppy seeds, black pepper, and broth from cooked chick peas. 

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/sourdough-crackers-recipe

video https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/videos/martin-bakes-at-home/sourdough-crackers

https://homesteadandchill.com/discarded-sourdough-starter-herb-crackers/

Kat O'Brien

Story

responses

Signaling

She had long aqua-colored nails and a menthol cigarette dangling as she hauled the vacuum into the street, yellow cord unraveling from her ground floor apartment. She wore red polka-dotted spandex shorts and began vacuuming the interior of a silver Mercedes with Florida plates. She was vigorously cleaning the drivers side floor, bending over with her butt in the traffic. He wondered why she wasn't working from the sidewalk side rather than standing in the street. That's when it began to dawn on him that she was signaling her real business.

Two Hands

"As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others."

 Maya Angelou

Dorthea Brande

Dorothea Brande was born in Chicago and attended the University of Chicago. Her book Becoming a Writer, published in 1934, is still in print and offers advice for beginning and sustaining any writing enterprise. She also wrote Wake Up and Live, published in 1936, which sold over two million copies. May her quotes inspire you to act boldly and make your dreams a reality.

1. “There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.” Dorothea Brande

2. “So long as new ideas are created, sales will continue to reach new heights.” Dorothea Brande

3. “Man’s mind is not a container to be filled but rather to be kindled.” Dorothea Brande

4. “The Wright Brothers flew through the smoke screen of impossibility.” Dorothea Brande

5. “By going over your day in imagination before you begin it, you can begin acting successfully at any moment.” Dorothea Brande

6. “Where there is an open mind, there will always be a frontier.” Dorothea Brande

7. “My own experience has been that there is no field where one who is in earnest about learning to do good work can make such enormous strides in so short a time.” Dorothea Brande

8. “Most of the methods of training the conscious side of the writer – the craftsman and the critic in him – are actually hostile to the good of the artist’s side; the converse of this proposition is likewise true. But it is possible to train both sides of the character to work in harmony, and the first step in that education is to consider that you must teach yourself not as though you were one person, but two.” Dorothea Brande

9. “The only difference between a problem and a solution is that people understand the solution.” Dorothea Brande

10. “If you can discover what you like, if you can discover what you truly believe about most of the major matters of life, you will be able to write a story which is honest and original and unique.” Dorothea Brande

11. “Writing calls on unused muscles and involves solitude and immobility.” Dorothea Brande

12. “It is the sum of small things successfully done that lifts a life out of bondage to the humdrum.” Dorothea Brande

13. “Hitch your unconscious mind to your writing arm.” Dorothea Brande

14. “For half an hour each day transport yourself back to the state of wide-eyed interest that was yours at age five.” Dorothea Brande

15. “Most writers flourish greatly on a simple, healthy routine with occasional time off for gaiety.” Dorothea Brande

16. “In the long run it makes little difference how cleverly others are deceived; if we are not doing what we are best equipped to do, or doing well what we have undertaken as our personal contribution to the world’s work, at least by way of an earnestly followed avocation, there will be a core of unhappiness in our lives which will be more and more difficult to ignore as the years pass.” Dorothea Brande

17. “Old habits are strong and jealous.” Dorothea Brande

18. “A problem clearly stated is a problem half solved.” Dorothea Brande

19. “Act boldly and unforeseen forces will come to your aid.” Dorothea Brande

20. “To guarantee success, act as if it were impossible to fail.” Dorothea Brande

https://www.awakenthegreatnesswithin.com/20-inspirational-dorothea-brande-quotes-on-success/